Modern
experimental research into positive thinking is suggesting the
presence of an underlying set of phenomena apparently operating
between the unconscious mind and the physical world. One of the
most obviously recognised forms of positive thinking can be seen
in the strong traditions and dependency on prayer to heal or
cure the sick, prayer being one of
the oldest and most emotive means of attempting to alter the outcome of events by 'manipulating' the more
obvious laws of nature.

In prehistoric
times, the role of the Shaman is understood as operating as a link between
the known and the unknown, perhaps in the same way as a priest
today, but they also operated as healers. It is the relationship
between belief and healing that is the topic of debate on this
page, and what makes shamanism relevant in the context of
positive thinking. A recent Lancet
editorial said it would be premature to rule out
the use of such therapies in modern medicine. It
added: "The contribution that hope and belief make
to a personal understanding of illness cannot be
dismissed so lightly" ... "They are proper subjects for
science". (5)

The following
examples suggest that the act of positive thinking itself can,
and does influence
events in the physical world.

Positive
Thinking: The Evidence.

Most people agree that positive thinking
is effective,
but just how
much is debatable.

The Placebo
Effect:

It is
perhaps ironic that the gold standard of
medical research has been the
double-blind, placebo-controlled
clinical trial. You give one group of
patients a medicine you want to test,
and another group a dummy pill
that has no active ingredients. Neither
the patients nor doctors know who is
getting which. Medical literature
includes a great deal of testimony that
the placebo effect routinely works 30
percent of the time, with Dr. Herbert
Benson of Harvard stating that it may
work up to 90 percent of the time. The
effectiveness of a placebo in any given
circumstance also varies greatly. In
nine double-blind studies comparing
placebos to aspirin, placebos proved to
be 54 percent as effective as the actual
analgesic. From this, one might expect
that placebos would be even less
effective when compared to a much
stronger painkiller such as morphine,
but this is not the case. In six
double-blind studies placebos were found
to be 56 percent as effective as
morphine in relieving pain. In a recent
study of a new kind of chemotherapy, 30
percent of the individuals in the
control group, the group given placebos,
lost their hair. (14)

Evidence
from numerous studies on the placebo
effect have revealed the fascinating
fact that the belief of the patient that
they are being cured appears to have
more effect than many modern
pharmaceutical medicines. In fact, the
placebo effect appears to be getting
stronger in people making it difficult
for the drug companies to produce new
drugs which show an improvement over it.
The credit for the increased placebo
effect is attributed to the increase in
consumer marketing, which leads to
people having a better belief in the
product. Many of the existing drugs,
such as Prozac, have been shown to
falter when compared to the placebo
effect. (13)

Placebo
effects can arise not only from a
conscious belief in a drug but also from
subconscious associations between
recovery and the experience of being
treated—from the pinch of a shot to a
doctor’s white coat. Such subliminal
conditioning can control bodily
processes of which we are unaware, such
as immune responses and the release of
hormones. Researchers have decoded some
of the biology of placebo responses,
demonstrating that they stem from active
processes in the brain. (12)

The Experiments
of Dr. Masaru Emoto.

Masaru Emoto, a researcher and alternative healer from Japan has
given the world a good deal of evidence of the magic of positive
thinking. He became famous when his water
molecule experiments featured in the 2004 film, What The Bleep Do
We Know?. His experiments demonstrate that human thoughts and intentions
can alter physical reality, in this case the
molecular structure of water. Given that humans are comprised of
at least 60% water, his discovery has far reaching implications. The
following two experiments were performed by Dr. Emoto, which he
says demonstrate the metaphysical reality of positive thinking.

The Ice
Crystal Experiment: In this experiment, water molecules
which had positive thoughts 'projected' at it were shown to form
into ice crystals which are both more complex and more
aesthetically pleasing. The experiments consists of
exposing water in glasses to different words, pictures, or
music, and then freezing and examining the
aesthetics of the resulting crystals with microscopic
photography.
Emoto claims that there are "many differences in the crystalline
structure of the water" depending on the type of water source,
which were taken from all over the world. For example, a water
sample from a "pristine mountain" stream would purportedly show
a "geometric" design that is "beautifully" shaped when frozen.
On the other hand, "polluted water" sources will supposedly show
a "definite distortion" and will be "randomly formed". (11)

Water
crystals following positive thoughts (left), and following
negative thoughts (right).

Article:'Double-Blind Test on the Effects of Distant Intention on Water
Crystal Formation': (Quick-link)

The
Rice Experiment: The rice experiment is another famous Emoto demonstration of the
power of negative thinking (and conversely, the power of positive
thinking.) In this experiment, Dr Emoto placed portions of cooked rice into
two containers. On one container he wrote "thank you" and on the
other "you fool". He then instructed school children to say the
labels on the jars out loud everyday when they passed them by. After
30 days, the rice in the container with positive thoughts had barely
changed, while the other was mouldy and rotten.

It is widely
reported that this experiment can be reproduced by almost
anyone. In order to perform the test yourself, you have to spend at least
5 minutes, twice a day consciously intending negative thoughts
or positive thoughts at the respective containers of rice. (Make
sure you use cooked rice, as it is the water content that is
said to produce the results).

The same
experiment is also reported to be possible with plants
such as growing carrot tops. In this version, it is
suggested that you take 4 carrots all the same size. Cut them
1/2 inch below the green top and trim off all the foliage. Place
them in 2 saucers, and label one
dish with a (+) and one
dish (-) and place them
in a window for light.
Keep them watered but
every day look at the
(+) carrots and think
"you are beautiful
plant, you will be green
and lush" etc...
and to the (-) carrots think
"you are horrible, I
hate you, you will
whither and die, brown
and disgusting".
After a few weeks, the results are apparently visibly obvious.

Article:
Can you Think Yourself Younger: (BBCNews:
Feb, 2010)

An
experiment in 1979 to see if thought
patterns could affect the ageing process
has turned out to have far reaching
consequences in the field of positive
thinking. Taken back 20 years through
visual aids and other stimulus to see if
it affected their group of elderly
gentlemen were Prof Langer, who took
physiological measurements both before
and after the week and found the men
improved across the board. Their blood
pressure dropped and, even more
surprisingly, their eyesight and hearing
got better. Both groups showed
improvements, but the experimental group
improved the most. Their gait,
dexterity, arthritis, speed of movement,
cognitive abilities and their memory was
all measurably improved. Prof Langer
believes that by encouraging the
men's minds to think younger their
bodies followed and actually became
"younger".
(3)

The
following experiment was designed to
determine if our
consciousness has the capacity to reach
out and connect to someone else in a way
that's health-promoting?". Dr
Schiltz has been conducting the study at
the Institute of Neotic Studies in North
Carolina, in which loving couples,
married over a decade, are tested in the
following way:

Schlitz takes
one of the couple into an isolated
room, where no sound can come in or go
out. They settle into a deep armchair
as Schlitz attaches electrodes to their
right hand which measures blood flow in
the
thumb and skin conductance
activity, both of which are measures of
their unconscious nervous system. Schlitz locks
the person into the
electromagnetically shielded chamber and ushers
the partner into another isolated
room with a closed-circuit television.
She explains that the screen will go on
and off. And at random intervals, the images
of the other partner will appear on the screen
for 10 seconds. During the times when
they see
them, they are told to think about
sending loving, compassionate intention.

The
results show changes in the first
partners blood
pressure and perspiration when they
sees the image of their partner, the
steady lines suddenly jump and become
ragged ... More interesting however, is
that at the same time there's a
change in the blood volume of the other
partner. It is described as a sudden change like that
associated with an
orienting response. If you suddenly hear
somebody whispering in your ear, and
there's nobody around, you have this
sense of what? What was that? That's
more or less what they are seeing in the
physiology.

After running 36 couples through this
test, the researchers found that when
one person focused his thoughts on his
partner, the partner's blood flow and
perspiration dramatically changed within
two seconds. The odds of this happening
by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen
double blind, randomized studies by such
institutions as the University of
Washington and the University of
Edinburgh have reported similar results.

So how are
we to explain this 'quantum
entanglement'? The current theory is as
follows:

Once two
particles have interacted, if you
separate them, even by miles, they
behave as if they're still connected. So
far, this has only been demonstrated on
the subatomic level. It is proposed that
the same effect could be working on
people in
close relationships -couples, siblings,
parent and child, not just emotionally, and
psychologically - but also physically. This idea, that we may be connected
at some molecular level greatly echoes the words
of the mystics.

'According to Dr. Bruce Lipton,
gene activity can change on a daily basis. If the
perception in your mind is reflected in the chemistry of
your body, and if your nervous system reads and
interprets the environment and then controls the blood’s
chemistry, then you can literally change the fate of
your cells by altering your thoughts... In the simplest
terms, this means that we need to change the way we
think if we are to heal cancer.'.

The jury is still out as
to exactly what is being witnessed with
faith healing. There are numerous
claims of 'miraculous' healing in the
literature but results of clinical
trials vary from trial to trial with one
claiming that remote 'intercessory'
prayer has a positive effect on patients (4),
another saying it has no effect
whatsoever (5),
and the next saying that it even has a negative
effect on the patients outcome
(6), so what
exactly is
the truth behind faith healing. The
results of faith healing tend to be
ascribed to the projection of positive
thought, but this is yet to be
satisfactorily established, as there is
also evidence suggesting it is the
thoughts of the 'patient' that are at
the heart of any witnessed phenomena.

Spirituality And Health:

In a
long-term case study of patients with
HIV, Prof. Gail Ironson began to notice
that certain patients never got sick.
She decided to investigate the matter
and found something surprising. If you ask people what's kept you
going so long, what keeps you healthy,
often people would say spirituality,"
she says. "It was something that just
kept coming up in the interviews, and
that's why I decided to look at it."
Prof. Ironson began to zero in on a
patient's relationship with God in an
attempt to predict how fast the disease
would progress. She focused on two key indicators.
She measured viral load, which tells how
much of the virus is present in a
person's body, and immune cells called
CD-4 cells, which help fight off the
AIDS virus. Ironson says over time, those who
turned to God after their diagnosis had
a much lower viral load and maintained
those powerful immune cells at a much
higher rate than those who turned away
from God. "In fact, people who felt abandoned
by God and who decreased in spirituality
lost their CD4 cells 4.5 times faster
than people who increased in
spirituality," Ironson says. "That was
actually our most powerful psychological
predictor to date." "Just so I understand it," I confirm,
"if someone weren't taking their meds
and were depressed, they would still
fare better if they increased in
spirituality?", "Yes," she says. "Now, I'm not in any
way suggesting that people don't take
their meds," she adds quickly, laughing.
"This is really an important point.
However, the effects of spirituality are
over and above."

Dr
Charmaine Griffiths,
spokesperson for the
British Heart
Foundation, speaking on
the subject of faith healing said: "While
this research suggests
that prayer and
alternative therapies do
not improve the clinical
outcome for patients
undergoing heart
procedures, there is
increasing interest in
the possibility that
positive emotional
states are beneficial to
heart health". She said associations
had been seen between
positive emotional
states and low levels of
the stress hormone
cortisol. "Further evidence is
emerging that people
with a more positive
outlook appear to be
less affected by
stressful events, such
as having surgery." She added: "Patients
learning to relax by
using breathing
techniques and listening
to music, and being
aware that others are
thinking of them may
contribute to a more
optimistic outlook.
"Whether these effects are significant
remains unproven."

(5)

Medical Study Questions the Power of
Prayer:

Dozens of studies of the effects of
prayer have been carried out in the last few
years with mixed results.

Contrary
to most experiments in this field, the
result of a 10 year study on the
effect of prayers offered by strangers
showed that they had no effect
on the recovery of people who were
undergoing heart surgery. In addition, patients
who knew they were being prayed for had a
higher rate of post-operative complications
like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because
of the expectations the prayers created, the
researchers suggested.

A variety of studies by Prof Richard Wiseman suggest that
the outcome of an experiment can be affected by the perception of
luck. The
results reveal that although people have
almost no insight into the causes of their luck,
their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for
much of their good and bad fortune. Research eventually revealed that
lucky people generate good fortune via four principles: They are skilled at creating and
noticing chance opportunities, make
lucky decisions by listening to
their intuition, create
self-fulfilling prophesies via
positive expectations, and adopt a
resilient attitude that transforms
bad luck into good. Aside from the
various experiments that demonstrated the existence of the
transference of luck into result on a minute to minute basis, Prof Wiseman
performed another experiment called the 'Name Experiment', which
apparently shows one of the root causes of luck.

The results were
announced at the opening of the 2008 Edinburgh
International Science Festival.
The experiment involved over 6,000 people indicating whether the most
popular first names in the UK sounded successful, lucky, and
attractive.
Strong trends emerged, with James and Elizabeth being seen as the
most successful, Jack and Lucy topping the luck table, and Sophie
and Ryan coming out as the most attractive. Lisa and Brian were seen
as the least successful, Helen and John as the least lucky, and Ann
and George as the most unattractive.

Past research has shown that such perceptions can become
self-fulfilling prophesies, with teachers giving higher marks to
children with attractive names and employers being more likely to
promote those who sound successful. These new findings could help
parents wishing to find the perfect name for their children. Traditional names with Royal associations were viewed as highly
successful and intelligent, and so parents hoping for successful
offspring might want to avoid more unusual names. Attractive female
names tended to be soft-sounding and end with the ‘ee’ sound,
whereas the sexiest males names are short and much harder sounding. Interesting sex differences also emerged, with women exhibiting
greater levels of agreement than men about the most successful,
lucky and attractive names. Women shared strong opinions about
names, whereas men are more even-handed. If our opinions about
people are influenced by their first names, then this data suggests
that women may be more judgemental than men. (7)

Superstition and
Luck:

'Superstition can boost performance through
confidence' - A new study suggests; (9)

Superstitious ways of
bringing good luck are found
in cultures around the
world, and it turns out they
may be ubiquitous for a very
good reason: To some extent
it appears,
superstitions work. New
research shows that
believing in, say, the power
of a good luck charm can
actually help improve
performance in certain
situations, even though the
charm and event aren't
logically linked.

This is what a team of
psychologists at the
University of Cologne in
Germany report in the May
issue of the journal
Psychological Science. In a
series of experiments
employing tasks involving
memory and motor skills, the
scientists studied the
effect of behaviour and
"object superstitions" –
which rely on good luck
charms in college
students.

The participants who kept
their good luck charms set
higher goals for what they
wanted to achieve on the
tasks, and said they felt
more confident in their
abilities.
"Engaging in superstitious
thoughts and behaviours may
be one way to reach one's
top level of performance,"
the researchers write in the
journal article.
(8)